Did masking tape cause Terminal 5 SNAFU?

FOR WHAT IT’S WORTH, there’s a tale going the rounds that the big cockup at Heathrow’s Terminal 5 was caused by, er, masking tape on the sensors.

The story goes like this. The software for the luggage sensing was thoroughly checked out prior to the opening, the hardware was all in place and everything was ready to go-go.

When everything started going belly up on the first day, the engineers were mystified as all seemed to be in order. That is until someone started walking round and noted that some of the sensors still had masking tape covering them.

Seems unlikely – surely the guys throw some real bags onto the conveyor belt before launch to do a dummy run? ♦